I USER'S GUIDE (EXECUTIVE) U S E R'S GUIDE
II © 2001 I.R.I.S. All rights reserved OCR and Linguistic technology by I.R.I.S. PCR-II recognition technology, PBR bar code reading, PHR handprinting recognition technology and Read & Speak by I.R.I.S. Speech technology by Lernout & Hauspie © 2001 I.R.I.S.
III USER'S GUIDE INTRODUCING THE IRISPEN The IRISPen may be the biggest sensation in computerland since the mouse! As efficient as computers are, you have to encode your data first. If you’ve ever rekeyed text, you know how boring and time-consuming it can be.... The IRISPen, a unique product for every computer user, offers instantaneous text retrieval at your fingertips. Text recognition where you want it, when you want it.
IV Since the IRISPen connects to the computer’s USB port without the need for an external power supply, you have a portable OCR system, an ideal solution, even for notebook owners. Finally, the IRISPen allows you to scan small graphics: logos, signatures, handwritten notes etc. are inserted directly in your documents by sliding the pen scanner over them. ON TO THE IRISPEN EXECUTIVE! The IRISPen Executive software converts your IRISPen into a multifunctional productivity tool.
V USER'S GUIDE tomer identification, order picking and many other examples of high accuracy data entry can benefit greatly from this bar code reading solution. Although all widespread bar code standards or “symbologies” are supported, you don’t have to specify the bar code type: the user-friendliness is such that the IRISPen automatically detects which bar code standard is used! The IRISPen Executive offers transparant bar code reading into any Windows application.
VI lines, rather than full sentences, the intonation may be somewhat less than “human”. HOW DOES THE IRISPEN WORK? The pen-sized scanner functions as a greyscale camera that sends an image to the computer. To recapture printed or typed information, you simply rule the pen over a line of text. You start scanning as soon as you press the IRISPen onto the paper; the scanned text is lit up by the scanner.
VII USER'S GUIDE Chapter 1: Installation System Requirements ................................................................................................ 1 What You See Is What You Get .................................................................................. 2 Installing the IRISPen Software .................................................................................. 2 Installing the IRISPen Hardware .................................................................................
VIII Extracting Key Words .............................................................................................. 37 Cut from Paper, Paste to Windows!© ........................................................................ 39 Completing Databases ............................................................................................. 41 Add the Currency... or Drop It .................................................................................. 41 Of Rows and Columns .....................
IX USER'S GUIDE Setting the Brightness ............................................................................................... 9 Adding Auditive Feedback ...................................................................................... 11 Which Bar Codes Can the IRISPen Read?................................................................. 12 Learning More... ......................................................................................................
X Handprinting (IRISPen Executive) ....................................................................................................... 3 3 Speech (IRISPen Executive - IRISPen Translator) ............................................................................ 3 5 Sound ........................................................................................................................................................... 3 6 File Menu ..............................................................
XI USER'S GUIDE IRISPen Executive ...................................................................................................... 5 IRISPen Translator .................................................................................................... 7 IRISPen for Banking World ........................................................................................ 9 IRISPen Options ........................................................................................................
XII CREDITS AND COPYRIGHTS The IRISPen, the IRISPen Executive and the IRISPen Translator software were designed and developed by I.R.I.S. OCR and Linguistic technology by I.R.I.S. I.R.I.S.
1-1 USER'S GUIDE Chapter 1 I NSTALLATION This chapter discusses the system requirements and installation of the IRISPen, the IRISPen Executive and the IRISPen Translator. The IRISPen consists of a hardware component and a software package. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS This is the minimal system configuration required to use the IRISPen: q a 486 based Intel PC or compatible. A Pentium based PC is recommended. q 16 MB RAM.
1-2 English, Brazilian, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Mexican, Russian and Spanish. To install additional translation pairs, 15 MB of free hard disk space is required. Contact your computer reseller if necessary. WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET The IRISPen product package should contain the pen scanner, the IRISPen CD-ROM, this manual, a registration card and a collection of IRISPen test sheets. Contact your I.R.I.S. reseller if any items are missing from your package.
1-3 USER'S GUIDE For the IRISPen Translator, you also have to select a language pair for the bidirectional translation. For instance, the IRISPen Translator English-French translates English into French and French into English. IRISPen Translator owners are entitled to one language pair. Extra language pairs can be purchased separately from I.R.I.S.
1-4 IRISPen Executive owners are entitled to one speech library of their choice; hence, they will be invited to select the language of the speech synthesis. The IRISPen Translator is equipped with the speech libraries of both languages in the translation pair. Extra speech modules can be purchased separately from I.R.I.S.
1-5 USER'S GUIDE The submenu "I.R.I.S. Applications - IRISPen" under the "Programs" menu is created automatically by the installation program. The installation program also creates a shortcut for the IRISPen application on the Windows desktop. As a result, you are able to start the IRISPen software directly from your desktop.
1-6 INSTALLING THE IRISPEN HARDWARE The IRISPen uses a USB connection. Standard PCs are equipped with two USB ports; this capability can be extended by installing a USB “hub” on your PC.
1-7 USER'S GUIDE The hardware installation of the pen scanner couldn’t be easier: you can “hot plug” the pen scanner into the PC’s USB port without having to reconfigure or reboot your PC.
1-8 Windows (un)install wizard Execute the following steps to make use of the Windows (un)install wizard. q Click "Settings" under the "Start" menu of Windows and go to the "Control Panel". q Click the icon "Add/Remove Programs" under the control panel. q The IRISPen is listed under the "Install/Uninstall" tab.
1-9 USER'S GUIDE q Select IRISPen and click the "Add/Remove" button to remove the IRISPen software. q Follow the on-screen instructions. REGISTER TO VOTE! Don’t forget to register your IRISPen licence! Doing so will allow us to keep you informed of future product developments and related I.R.I.S. products.
1 - 10 registration benefits, including free product support and special offers, are strictly limited to registered users. You can register in many ways: by sending in your registration card or faxing its electronic counterpart, by calling I.R.I.S. during working hours and by filling out a registration form on the I.R.I.S.
1 - 11 USER'S GUIDE The IRISPen registration wizard as you’ll find under the menu "Register" of the IRISPen software can guide you through the registration process comfortably. GETTING PRODUCT SUPPORT The command "Product Support" under the "Help" menu of the IRISPen software details how you can get technical support. Please describe the phenomenon you experience clearly and include all relevant data concerning your IRISPen and your computer system.
1 - 12 GETTING IN TOUCH WITH I.R.I.S. You can contact I.R.I.S. to learn more about complementary software and related products; the command "Contact I.R.I.S." under the "Help" menu of IRISPen details in which ways you can get in touch with I.R.I.S.
1 - 13 USER'S GUIDE An application icon in the submenu "I.R.I.S. Applications - IRISPen" under the "Programs" menu takes you directly to the I.R.I.S. home page. So does the command "I.R.I.S. on the Internet" under the "Help" menu of the IRISPen software.
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2-1 USER'S GUIDE Chapter 2 GUIDED TOUR The IRISPen is a sophisticated product equipped with many advanced features for professional applications. Although it is impossible to explore every imaginable application, we will discuss in this chapter the major applications and add many tips and hints concerning the use of the IRISPen. Let’s have a look at the pen scanner first.
2-2 This option is not compatible with the speech synthesis of the IRISPen Executive and the IRISPen Translator: you cannot produce system beeps and pronounce the recognized text at the same time! View Window Line Guide Start Switch Pen Button The line guide on the view window helps you scan accurately. Steady scanning not only improves the recognition but is specifically useful when you want to read text with limited interline spacing.
2-3 USER'S GUIDE STARTING THE SOFTWARE UP So much for the pen scanner. Let’s get started with the software: now that we have installed the IRISPen system, we want to start scanning text into our applications. To start the IRISPen software, click on the IRISPen application in the submenu "I.R.I.S. Applications - IRISPen", or use the shortcut created by the installation program on the Windows desktop. The IRISPen startup screen appears for a few seconds.
2-4 Next, the IRISPen application window and two additional windows, the (greyscale) image window and the status window, are displayed. 3chapter2.
2-5 USER'S GUIDE We’ll concentrate on the IRISPen application window first. It consists of three parts: the menu bar comprises all software commands, the toolbar gives quick 3chapter2.
2-6 access to all frequent commands and the window pane contains the basic settings. SETTING UP THE NECESSARY PARAMETERS Let’s have a look at the basic IRISPen settings in the application’s window pane. Reading Mode Determines the reading mode: alphanumeric, bar codes, black-and-white bitmap to clipboard, greyscale bitmap to clipboard, handprinting and numeric. The options "Bar Codes" and "Handprinting" are limited to the IRISPen Executive. Select "Alphanumeric" for the time being.
2-7 USER'S GUIDE Translate to (IRISPen Translator) Indicates the target language of the translation: you scan for instance English text and translate it into French. Sentence translation is obviously limited to the IRISPen Translator. Bar Codes (IRISPen Executive) Enables a mixed reading mode where bar codes are read alongside other data. The parameter "Reading Mode" sets the primary reading mode, this option determines whether you read bar codes at the same time.
2-8 Multilines (IRISPen Executive and Translator) The option "Multilines" sees to it that multiple lines are “buffered” before they get inserted in the target application. You can for instance send an entire paragraph to your Windows application at once. It takes a click on the pen button to “flush” the scanned text. This option is limited to the IRISPen Executive and the IRISPen Translator. ABOUT THE STATUS WINDOW... The basic settings are displayed in the IRISPen status window.
2-9 USER'S GUIDE Click the "OK" button to minimize the IRISPen application; clicking the "Minimize" button in the upper right corner amounts to the same thing. The IRISPen application now runs in the background. ...
2 - 10 Hold the IRISPen like a pencil. When you press the pen scanner onto the paper, you activate the start switch and the data you want to scan is illuminated through the view window by a red light. The design of the IRISPen is such that the start switch only comes on when you hold this device at the correct angle. Rule the IRISPen over a text line of the I.R.I.S. test sheet at a steady rate. As soon as you lift the IRISPen, the recognized, editable text appears in your text editor or text application.
2 - 11 USER'S GUIDE You can scan some 3.15" (8 cm.) per second. When you scan too fast, image information gets lost, and the status window blinks for a few seconds inviting you to scan slower. The IRISPen reads the text line directly under or closest to the line guide. Lift the IRISPen to stop scanning. As soon as you do, the recognition software analyzes the image and the scanned text appears instantly in the output target. You now have editable characters in your text editor.
2 - 12 As is the case for the status window, you shouldn’t hesitate to drag the status window to another position on the screen. (The position of the status window and greyscale image window are maintained when you save the default settings.) To access the scan test window, right-click the IRISPen control on the Windows taskbar and select the command "Scan Test". Or select the "Scan Test" button on the IRISPen toolbar or even the command "Scan Test" from the "Options" menu of the IRISPen software.
2 - 13 USER'S GUIDE The option "Fit to Window" ensures that the entire image is displayed in the scan test window, whatever the length of the scanned line may be. This option is enabled by default. With this option disabled, the image isn’t compressed horizontally when the scanning is completed. Use the scroll bar to display various parts of the image successively.
2 - 14 The line length is limited to 12" (30.5 cm.) per scan. The pen scanner simply shuts down when you scan a longer line. When the scanned line is very long, you may have to scroll to display the recognized text entirely. Place the cursor in the text zone and press the End key to go directly to the end of the recognized text; press Home to return to the beginning. 3chapter2.
2 - 15 USER'S GUIDE To obtain an optimal image, slide the pen smoothly and evenly over the paper. Do not lift the IRISPen away from the paper, as this ends your scan. These are not unrealistic conditions. Acquire some experience with your IRISPen and all will come naturally; you can use the I.R.I.S. test sheets to get some training. Once you have developed the necessary “sleight of hand”, the agility of the IRISPen is such that you can scan text from books, bottles etc.
2 - 16 THE IRISPEN AND DIRECT IMAGE SCANNING Clicking the button "Save Image" saves the scanned image in a graphic file. Three file formats are available: black-and-white and greyscale Windows bitmaps (BMP) and a proprietary black-and-white graphic format called "IRISPen image". IRISPen graphics should be used for diagnostic purposes only. Windows bitmaps can also be used to save images: use them to scan small graphics such as logos, signatures etc. 3chapter2.
2 - 17 USER'S GUIDE Bitmaps and IRISPen graphic files can be loaded into memory with the button "Load Image". The option "Recognize" sees to it that all images you scan or open are recognized. (When the scan test mode is used to save graphics instead of scanning data, you can disable this option: scanning a graphic, the IRISPen software won’t find any text anyway.
2 - 18 clipboard, you can paste it directly in your application. On the down side, you cannot retouch the contents of the clipboard! Select the reading mode "Black-and-White Bitmap to Clipboard" or "Greyscale Bitmap to Clipboard" in the IRISPen application window for direct image scanning. (Note that you can no longer select an output target now!) Place the text cursor in your Windows application and scan the graphic.
2 - 19 USER'S GUIDE GOOD OCR FOR BAD IMAGES Back to text! Although we rightly emphasized the importance of steady scanning, it should be noted that the OCR software is very powerful. Given the unstable scanning by the human hand holding a greyscale pen scanner, the recognition technology has to cope with images of very bad quality. 3chapter2.
2 - 20 The greyscale image window allows you to see exactly how bad the image quality can be. Colors are a first factor - think of low-contrast documents where the background virtually has the same color as the text. Furthermore, the images can be highly distorted: wavy and skewed lines, contracted, stretched and rotated characters the “raw” material the IRISPen has to process. 3chapter2.
2 - 21 USER'S GUIDE So, the IRISPen offers OCR at its best: the unique PCR-II technology PCR is short for “Pen Character Recognition” - executes character recognition despite every handicap imaginable. THE IRISPEN IS A LINE SCANNER The greyscale image and the scan test windows illustrate another characteristic of the IRISPen, central line tracking. It is an essential feature: although you scan strokes of about 0.4" (1 cm.
2 - 22 starts on the right side. The IRISPen isolates the correct visual information without any help. The IRISPen software automatically picks up the “central” line, that is the line directly under or closest to the line guide on the pen scanner. Where the interline spacing is reduced, the line guide on your pen scanner’s view window helps you select the correct information. The scanning height of about 0.4" (1 cm.
2 - 23 USER'S GUIDE In some instances, scanning in greyscale is mandatory to obtain good OCR results! When text was printed on a color background, scanning in greyscale may create the tone differences that are lacking in black-and-white images.
2 - 24 Should this be necessary, you can optimize the image further for the OCR process. The IRISPen Executive uses some complicated concepts here, and we need to discuss them in detail. The option "Smoothen Image" renders the greyscale images more homogeneous by “flattening”, smoothing out relative differences in intensity. As a result, a sharper contrast is created between the foreground - the text - and the background - a color, artwork etc. We suggest that you leave this option enabled at all times.
2 - 25 USER'S GUIDE necessary by darkening or lightening the black-and-white image: when you darken the image, more pixels become black in the black-and-white version, when you lighten the image, less pixels become black. Note that the recognition is re-executed promptly each time you modify the image settings! 3chapter2.
2 - 26 3chapter2.
2 - 27 USER'S GUIDE The last option, "Despeckle", concerns the black-and-white image. “Despeckling” means that the “parasite pixels” (also called “salt and pepper noise”) will be removed from the black-and-white images. Be sure that you don’t erase spots that are too big, otherwise you might start erasing the dots on "i", portions of dot matrix letters etc.! (The recognition is reexecuted promptly each time you modify this setting.) 3chapter2.
2 - 28 3chapter2.
2 - 29 USER'S GUIDE Thanks to the image adjustment features of the IRISPen Executive, a larger range of documents can be read. You make documents legible that couldn’t be read in any other way: think for example of documents where the colored background would otherwise render the recognition impossible. However, a red or yellow background will never be picked up by the pen scanner: red and yellow are the IRISPen’s “drop out” or invisible colors.
2 - 30 BLACK IS BLACK AND WHITE IS WHITE Now that we’re discussing colors: light text on a dark background is legible, provided that you enable the option "Negative Image" under the "Options" menu. (You can also use this option to scan “negative” graphics.) The image in the greyscale image window is left untouched. The inversion is only visible in the black-and-white image: black “pixels” become white, white pixels become black. The status window indicates whether this option is enabled or not.
2 - 31 USER'S GUIDE HIGHLIGHTING EXCERPTS Start your wordprocessor now and scan a few text lines. If you have to enter small portions of text into a wordprocessor, the IRISPen is your ideal partner! You can enter several thousands of characters per minute, much more than even the fastest secretary using a keyboard.
2 - 32 scanner, draw a frame around the text snippet to be recognized and wait until the OCR is executed, then transfer the text result to your wordprocessor... The IRISPen on the other hand offers real-time recognition. Slide your pen over your text and in less than a second, it appears on your screen. Use the IRISPen and you can type...
2 - 33 USER'S GUIDE “Letter quality” dot matrix printing, also called “25 pin” or “NLQ” dot matrix, requires the normal setting, as do the printing qualities typeset, typewritten, laser printed and inkjet printed. The status window indicates whether the dot matrix reading mode is enabled or not. Obviously, this option is disabled by default.
2 - 34 A second option allows you to indicate the start of a new paragraph. The programmable pen button takes care of this. Select the "Pen Button" button on the toolbar (or the command "Pen Button" from the "Settings" menu). Indicate which keyboard command you want to execute or which characters you want to insert when you press the pen button once. To start a new paragraph for example, you will program the pen button to execute the key.
2 - 35 USER'S GUIDE Also note that the pen button makes it easier to insert the scanned text at the right location. When data is to be entered in, say, a database, the key can be assigned to the pen button to move the cursor to the next field. (The pen button incorporates some other features which will be discussed later.
2 - 36 Let’s give an example to clear things up. When you read two lines, "The new resulting output is "The new president "presi-" was ignored and so was the “normal” suffix . If the two following two lines are: "His lovely wife" and "had joined him.", the output will be "His lovely wife had joined him.", with the space after the word "wife" added by the IRISPen software as the normal ending code.
2 - 37 USER'S GUIDE There are four word cropping options: you can output all scanned characters, drop the first word (or incomplete word), drop the last word or drop both. By default, all characters are retained. The last option is particularly useful when scanning closely columnized text: to ensure that you do not miss any significant words, you start scanning in the previous column and end scanning in the next column. The IRISPen takes care of deleting the unwanted word parts.
2 - 38 In this case, you will scan with more precision. If you start or stop a bit too early, you have erroneously scanned part of a previous or following word, giving you an unrecognized symbol. This option sees to it that these rejected characters are ignored by the IRISPen. When the gutter between two columns is narrow, or when wordspacing is reduced, this feature comes in handy.
2 - 39 USER'S GUIDE CUT FROM PAPER, PASTE TO WINDOWS!© Wordprocessors are indeed just a single example of software the IRISPen complements. Actually, the IRISPen will output to any Windows application: spreadsheets, databases, office software with e-mail and electronic agendas, personal and contact managers, text editors, encoding utilities, bookkeeping software etc. The list of supported applications is really endless! 3chapter2.
2 - 40 The key to the “universality” of the IRISPen is its keyboard emulation. The IRISPen effectively replaces your keyboard by imitating keyboard strokes as soon as the application is running in the background, so you can use this tool to insert text wherever you have a text cursor on your Windows PC. Basically, the IRISPen establishes a “copy and paste” operation: you copy text from paper documents and paste it in your Windows applications.
2 - 41 USER'S GUIDE COMPLETING DATABASES When you enter data in a database, the possibility to add starting and ending codes at the beginning and/or end of the recognized text is particularly useful. When you choose for example the keyboard command as ending code, the cursor will reposition itself in the next field, ready for the next scan. Imagine you want to add addresses to your contact manager.
2 - 42 Select the command "Character Conversion" under the "Settings" menu. A window shows you a list of all characters; characters to which conversion applies are highlighted. Click on them to see how they are converted. Click the option "No Conversion" to disable the active conversion. The button "Unconvert All" disables all active conversions with a single click. In the example below, the "$" symbol is ignored, erased because the user wants to enter some numeric data in a spreadsheet.
2 - 43 USER'S GUIDE OF ROWS AND COLUMNS There’s another feature of major importance to the scanning of tables of figures: the detection of table cells as you find in the example below. The command "Table Frame Conversion" under the "Settings" menu offers the key. Some common keyboard commands are presented by default, but you 3chapter2.
2 - 44 can also enter user defined characters, keyboard commands and any combination of these. For instance, when you select , the IRISPen will execute a whenever it encounters a vertical bar. As a moves your cursor to the next cell, scanning this table into a spreadsheet will put the individual figures in separate cells. Add as ending code to relocate the cursor on the next row. 3chapter2.
2 - 45 USER'S GUIDE In other words, you can recreate the typical table structure with rows and columns by simply scanning line after line! Mind you, this only works when continuous vertical bars separate the table columns: the IRISPen software has to encounter a physical mark, detect a border between two columns. Where the original document does not contain vertical bars, the easiest procedure is to quickly add them with a pen and a ruler.
2 - 46 by a cursor command. Here’s an example: to insert the line "2,55£ 5.99£ 65£" in a worksheet, it suffices to replace the symbol "£" by to place the individual figures in separate cells. MORE FUN FOR NUMBER CRUNCHERS Entering tabular data in a spreadsheet is one of the most popular IRISPen applications. Actually, the IRISPen is capable of entering numbers faster and more accurately than any human being can.
2 - 47 USER'S GUIDE Click on a symbol to select and deselect it. The buttons "Select A-Z", "Select 0-9" etc. provide a faster method of selecting ranges of symbols; click on these buttons to add and remove symbol ranges. To read standardized financial documents such as printed checks, bonds, bank statements etc., you could limit recognition to the OCR-B characters by enabling exclusively the numeric symbols, "<", ">" and "+". (OCR-B is actually more than a character set.
2 - 48 A third example is reading data strings with a specific syntax. Think for example of the serial numbers found on product labels. Such character strings go beyond the numeric symbols, but never contain the full alphabetic range of characters. The reason for limiting the character set is that you keep excluding recognition errors as the confusion between '5' and "S", '0' and "O" etc. and that you make the recognition somewhat faster.
2 - 49 USER'S GUIDE THE READING PEN... E VEN SPEAKS! When you are scanning figures and structured character strings, precision and speed are of major importance. Thanks to the IRISPen’s integrated “Read & Speak” speech technology, you can go ahead and scan your text without looking up to the screen to verify the result. “Hands- and eyes-busy” data entry become possible as the speech synthesis provides you with clear, natural sounding auditive feedback of all recognized text.
2 - 50 ondly, the speech feature opens a world of multimedia applications to the IRISPen users. Refer to chapter 3 to learn more about it all! THE IRISPEN TAKES YOU AROUND THE WORLD Customizing the character set is actually also what you do when you select a language in the IRISPen application window.
2 - 51 USER'S GUIDE Also note that the British and American - or should we say “international”? variants of the English language are distinguished. The same goes for Spanish and Mexican. You can press a letter key to move to it directly: if English is currently selected, and you want to select Hungarian, you can click the "H" key on your keyboard to go directly to the Hungarian language. When several languages have the same initial, press the letter several times to go through the options.
2 - 52 you select Polish, by pressing "P" a second time, you select Portuguese, and by pressing "P" a third time, you’re back on Polish. (To go to another letter, say T, press BackSpace before you enter the "T" character.) It takes the appropriate Windows configuration to display Central-European, Greek, Turkish, Cyrillic and Baltic characters. You may have to install the Windows module "Multilanguage Support" before your Windows system is able to cope with these languages.
2 - 53 USER'S GUIDE To read exotic languages, you also need to enable the correct keyboard layout under Windows! By doing so, an appropriate font is activated. The Windows control panel "Keyboard" allows you to install the necessary keyboard layouts. 3chapter2.
2 - 54 Selecting the proper document language is imperative. Based on the selection of a language, the software knows which symbol set to recognize. Multilinguistic support ensures that “exotic” characters such as ç, ß, ñ, γ and ø are recognized correctly. Secondly, the software extensively uses linguistic databases to validate its results. Suppose that you have to read the word "president" where an ink stain makes the "r" look like an "f".
2 - 55 USER'S GUIDE The illustration below shows various shapes of '1' and "l". The shapes on the first line are unambiguous, the shapes on the second line are ambiguous, but linguistics can solve them. THE IRISPEN CHANGES LANGUAGES AS NEEDED But the buck doesn’t stop here: the IRISPen can switch languages in the middle of a sentence without any help from the user! When Western words pop up in Greek and Cyrillic documents - many untranscrible proper names, brand names etc.
2 - 56 The result looks like this when opened with the wordprocessor - don’t forget to enable the “exotic” keyboard layout to read and display such texts. To mix other languages, simply select the language with the most extended character set. If you have a document where the, say, French translation is placed alongside an English text, you have to select French as language to ensure that the accentuated characters such as ç, é and ù get recognized correctly.
2 - 57 USER'S GUIDE guage in the IRISPen application window, enable a cropping option to read the middle column comfortably, have the paragraphs restored and add a space as ending code with the "Alignment" command and finally program the single pen button click to execute and start a new paragraph.
2 - 58 For clarity, give meaningful names to your IRISPen configurations, for instance GERMAN, TABLE etc. The command "Open Settings" under the "File" menu loads IRISPen configurations into memory.
2 - 59 USER'S GUIDE Also note that the last four settings are directly available on the "File" menu; simply click a configuration to load it. RESTORING THE APPLICATION TO THE FOREGROUND As we’re talking ease of use now, we’ll go on with some additional features. We already know that the IRISPen software is equipped with a toolbar for quick access to all frequently used commands. Let’s briefly repeat what the buttons stand for.
2 - 60 To switch directly to the IRISPen application, you can right-click or doubleclick the status window. The status window does more than provide information, it also gives you direct access to the IRISPen application! Finally, you can define a hotkey with the command "Hotkeys" under the "Settings" menu. Enter a key combination to restore the application. Evidently, you should not use key combinations such as Ctrl+V which are used by your target application(s).
2 - 61 USER'S GUIDE When you have selected "Alphanumeric" as your reading mode and you execute the hotk, the IRISPen switches to the mode "Bar Codes". When you repeat the hotkey a few times, you switch to "Black-and-White Bitmap to Clipboard", "Greyscale Bitmap to Clipboard", "Handprinting", "Numeric" and back to "Alphanumeric". MORE ABOUT THE PEN BUTTON And why not use the pen button to switch modes? You can program a button click to switch between the reading modes.
2 - 62 The fact that the single and double click of the pen scanner button are programmed separately adds all the more flexibility! Let’s give some illustrations. Imagine you are encoding addresses from business cards, brochures, catalogs etc. you collected during a trade show in a database. Depending on the addresses, some fields will be skipped. For some addresses, the country will be added, and for others, it won’t, some contacts have an e-mail address while others don’t etc.
2 - 63 USER'S GUIDE In this example, we can skip the empty fields with a single button click and start a new record by programming the double pen button click as Alt+S, the shortcut for the "Save and Close" button. Or you have to encode forms with addresses and coded numbers in a database. The codes are strictly numeric, the address is of course composed of alphanumeric data. To add complexity, the data must be distributed among different database fields.
2 - 64 Spreadsheets offer another application when figures are read one by one: the single click is programmed as and allow to move the cursor to the next cell, the double-click is programmed as and moves the cursor to the next row. GETTING ON-LINE HELP This concludes our overview of the IRISPen. Some last-minute information may not be included in this manual. We thus recommend you to consult the online help system for additional information on the IRISPen’s capabilities.
2 - 65 USER'S GUIDE ACQUIRING UPGRADES The command "Upgrade" under the "Register" menu tells you how to upgrade the IRISPen software to the multifunctional reading pen IRISPen Executive or the translation and language learning tool IRISPen Translator, and how to acquire extra options for your IRISPen. 3chapter2.
2 - 66 Basically, the IRISPen product range uses a modular approach: by installing an upgrade, you add whatever extra feature you don’t have yet. You can upgrade from the IRISPen Standard to the IRISPen Executive and to the IRISPen Translator, from the IRISPen Translator to the IRISPen Executive, from an IRISPen Executive to an IRISPen Translator etc. 3chapter2.
2 - 67 USER'S GUIDE MORE ABOUT THE IRISPEN EXECUTIVE... The software-only upgrade to the IRISPen Executive offers numerous major add-on capabilities: speech synthesis, bar code reading, handprinting recognition, recognition of dot matrix documents, advanced image adjustment features and multiline scanning.
2 - 68 to specify the symbology: the user-friendliness is such that the IRISPen automatically detects which bar code standard has been scanned! There is no programming or parameter setting involved in its operation, its use is automatic and transparent. You can even enable a mixed reading mode where bar codes are read alongside other data - for instance “normal” text. The IRISPen “auto-detects” which type of data is being read.
2 - 69 USER'S GUIDE Encoding forms and labels can also benefit greatly from numeric handprinting recognition. This proprietary recognition technology is based on more than 1 million writing samples! All natural writing styles - American and European - are supported; contrary to most other handprinting recognition solutions, no training phase or imposed style is required. Furthermore, the IRISPen Executive supports dot matrix recognition.
2 - 70 Multiline scanning increases the “user-friendliness” of the IRISPen: several lines are “buffered” before they get inserted in the target application. You can send full paragraphs consisting of several lines to your Windows applications at once. The multiline reading mode also leads to a more natural prosody: when the text-to-speech module has to pronounce individual lines, rather than full sentences, the intonation may be somewhat less than “human”.
2 - 71 USER'S GUIDE The IRISPen Translator provides bidirectional, real-time sentence translation of all scanned text; the text is inserted in your active application, the translation “pops up” on your computer screen in a speech bubble. 3chapter2.
2 - 72 The IRISPen Translator software also offers clipboard translation. You translate texts without scanning, the text to be translated is simply copied to the clipboard: think of texts entered on the keyboard, wordprocessor files you open, e-mail messages you receive, Internet web pages you consult etc. The IRISPen Translator English-French translates English into French and vice versa. Extra translation libraries can be installed.
2 - 73 USER'S GUIDE rently available: English and British English, Brazilian, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Mexican, Russian and Spanish. Secondly, the IRISPen Executive supports all widespread bar code symbologies, but support of Code 128, a specialized bar code used in the financial world, is optional. The same goes for the recognition of the specialized banking fonts (OCR-A, OCR-B, E13B and CMC-7). This reading capability is offered by the special software version for the financial world. Contact I.
2 - 74 3chapter2.
3-1 USER'S GUIDE Chapter 3 READ & SPEAK If you feel the IRISPen should not only read but also talk, your problems are over! The “Read & Speak” speech synthesis as integrated in the IRISPen Executive and the IRISPen Translator brings spectacular new applications to all IRISPen owners. Where the IRISPen is by definition a “hands- and eyes-busy” data entry device, text-to-speech provides clear, natural sounding auditive feedback of all recognized data.
3-2 As is to be expected of a multilingual system, up to 10 languages can be supported. PREPARING FOR SPEECH SYNTHESIS Click on the "Speech" button on the toolbar (or enable the option "Speech" under the "Options" menu) to activate the speech synthesis. Doing so disables the option "Sound" automatically: it doesn’t make any sense to mix real speech and system sounds! Evidently, your PC must be equipped with a Windows compatible sound card if the speech synthesis is to work.
3-3 USER'S GUIDE Users can extend the speech capability by adding additional speech modules. Ten languages are currently available: English and British English, Brazilian, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Mexican, Russian and Spanish. REPEATING THE SPEECH You can repeat the last utterance at any moment: right-click the button "Speech" in the IRISPen toolbar (or use the command "Repeat Speech" under the "Options" menu).
3-4 A WORD ABOUT TEXT TO SPEECH On the whole, the operation of the text-to-speech feature is very easy and straightforward. But does this mean that the technology is as well? In fact, the opposite is true! Let’s have a closer look at this exciting technology. Converting text to intelligible sound is a complex process incorporating three steps: a linguistic, a phonetic and an acoustic phase. Each module plays a distinct roll in the text-to-speech process.
3-5 USER'S GUIDE guistic rules are applied to all other abbreviations, depending on their structure: "NASA" is pronounced as any “normal” word but abbreviations such as "Ph. D." and "MBA" will be pronounced letter per letter. Abbreviations composed of the first letter of each word and pronounced as normal words are called acronyms: IRIS, short for "Image Recognition Integrated Systems" is an example.
3-6 This syntactic and lexical analysis makes extensive use of general rules and dictionaries containing exceptions. It takes contextual linguistic knowledge to detect that "record" is a verb and "record" a noun. Dictionaries are again used to solve such cases: suffixes such as "-ness", "-logy", "-ly" can help to determine the word status.
3-7 USER'S GUIDE The length of a sound depends on many factors: the intrinsic length of the phoneme - the length of the /oo/ sound in "book" and "groovy" is very different , the stress - stressed syllables are higher in pitch and longer - and some other factors. Important syntactic borders are marked by a higher intonation, sounds are longer just before a syntactic border.
3-8 To ensure that the speech module will produce correct results for such character strings, you should respect these rules when your documents - forms, labels etc. - are designed and produced. In other words, these syntax rules tell you how English dates, French telephone numbers and German bank account numbers should be composed to be recognized as such. 4chapter3.
4-1 USER'S GUIDE Chapter 4 BAR CODE READING Bar code reading adds numerous applications for IRISPen owners: information desks, marketing surveys, customer identification, order picking and many other examples of data entry in the office environment can benefit highly from a bar code reading solution. Where extreme accuracy and high speed are mandatory in identification processes, bar codes undoubtedly offer a great solution.
4-2 mation, you simply glide the pen over a line of text. As you scan, an image consisting of intense points (so-called “pixels”) on a lighter background is generated and transmitted to the PC. The IRISPen software now takes over. All this applies to bar codes as well. The one difference is in the processing: the image captured with the pen scanner contains black and white bars, not characters, and the software analyzes these bars, not characters shapes, to extract a sequence of symbols.
4-3 USER'S GUIDE PREPARING FOR BAR CODE READING To read bar codes, and not text, it suffices to select the reading mode "Bar Codes" in the IRISPen application window. Evidently, no language selection or other text-oriented settings apply to bar codes. The selection of the reading mode is confirmed by the IRISPen status window. That’s all it takes, you are now ready to scan bar codes! Contrary to most bar code readers, you do not have to indicate which bar code symbology you are going to read.
4-4 Clicking on this button enables the reading mode "Bar Codes" at the same time (unless the mixed reading mode is enabled). If you want to activate this reading mode and adjust the bar code settings simultaneously, a click on this button suffices. By default, all bar code symbologies are enabled and the IRISPen will autodetect the symbology, but you can limit the recognition to specific bar code types. Simply click on the corresponding options to enable and disable a specific symbology. 5chapter4.
4-5 USER'S GUIDE For the symbologies EAN-13, EAN-8 and UPC-A, you can choose to verify the check character(s) with the option "Verify and Erase Check Digit". When this option is enabled, the check digit is verified but filtered from the output. When this option is disabled, the check character is not verified but included in the output. Disable this option to support the variation of the UPC-A symbology which does not contain a check digit. Another option concerns the Code 39 symbology.
4-6 The IRISPen will “auto-detect” the type of data that is being read. You can for instance scan address labels where the printed data is complemented by a bar code without ever changing the reading mode! SCANNING TIPS Let’s try and read some bar codes now! Use the I.R.I.S. bar code test sheet to this end. Select the correct IRISPen settings, click the "OK" or "Minimize" button to make the IRISPen application run in the background and start up any text-based Windows application.
4-7 USER'S GUIDE Always check that you start scanning clearly ahead of the bar code and end well after it; most bar code types require a “quiet zone” in front of and behind the actual bar code. Partial scans will not render partial results! All bar code generating software packages provide an option where a large “quiet zone” is added to the actual bar codes.
4-8 Never read more than a single bar code per scan! Some product labels are composed of two bar codes, where the first bar codes identifies the product and the “supplemental” bar code specifies the retail price. When a single image contains two bar codes, the widest bar code gets read and the secondary is ignored, as the example below illustrates. GOOD READING OF BAD IMAGES You will soon experience, that, as much as you might want to, it is very difficult to scan with a perfectly steady hand.
4-9 USER'S GUIDE Below are some typical examples of images you can generate when you scan less than perfectly. While the first bar code is read at a constant angle, thus producing a skewed image, the second bar code has become wavy because of a varying scanning direction. SETTING THE BRIGHTNESS The test mode is also useful to set the brightness correctly.
4 - 10 5chapter4.
4 - 11 USER'S GUIDE To provide optimal security, bar codes never yield a partial result: a skipped bar, a missing start or stop character and a incorrect check digit always lead to a misread, a zero result. ADDING AUDITIVE FEEDBACK It goes without saying that you can activate the speech feature to get auditive feedback of your bar codes.
4 - 12 WHICH BAR CODES CAN THE IRISPEN READ? Let’s discuss the IRISPen’s bar code reading capability in depth now that we are familiar with its operation. Which bar code symbologies can the IRISPen software read? What limitations does the IRISPen scanner have? As far as color tones are concerned, the IRISPen works best on well contrasted bar codes. Black bars on a white background yield the best results.
4 - 13 USER'S GUIDE code applications. The IRISPen is a productivity tool for the office environment, not a scanner for industrial applications! It would therefore be unrealistic to expect the same flexibility from the IRISPen one takes for granted for a bar code wand or laser scanner. The IRISPen supports bearer bars.
4 - 14 LEARNING MORE... Appendix C of this manual discusses the “symbologies” or bar code standards the IRISPen Executive software can read and contains some samples of bar codes the IRISPen can read with great ease. 5chapter4.
5-1 USER'S GUIDE Chapter 5 HANDPRINTING RECOGNITION Last but not least, the IRISPen Executive also offers handprinting recognition. Financial applications, form reading, encoding labels etc. can benefit greatly not only from bar code reading but also from recognition of handprinted numerals. This proprietary recognition technology from I.R.I.S. is based on more than 1 million writing samples! As a result, all natural writing styles - American and European - are supported.
5-2 The selection of the reading mode is confirmed by the status window. That’s all it takes, you are now ready to scan handprinted numerals! HANDPRINTING OR HANDWRITING? Up to now, we used the word “handprinting” to describe the recognition of handwritten symbols by the IRISPen. What do we mean exactly by handprinting? Handwriting is used to describe continuous or “cursive” handwritten text.
5-3 USER'S GUIDE FINE-TUNING THE OPERATION The IRISPen Executive software allows you to fine-tune the operation of handprinting recognition. Click on the button "Handprinting" on the toolbar to modify these settings. Clicking on this button enables the reading mode "Handprinting" at the same time. If you want to activate this reading mode and adjust the handprinting settings simultaneously, a click on this button suffices. You have full control over segmentation and the rejection level.
5-4 The second example illustrates contiguous spacing. The space between two characters is considerably reduced, some characters may occassionally touch each other and the zones covered by a single character may overlap. Nevertheless, the IRISPen recognizes the bank account number perfectly. It is mandatory to set this parameter correctly.
5-5 USER'S GUIDE predefines zones are not picked up by the IRISPen, the invisible or “drop out” colors red and yellow should be used. Secondly, the user has influence over the rejection rate. Drag the slider bar to adjust the rejection level. When the rejection threshold is increased, characters will be marked as unknown symbols quicker, there will be less substitutions; when the rejection rate is decreased, the system will substitute more symbols as it tries harder to find a match.
5-6 The second time, a handwritten character string was scanned. All characters are linked as human beings write in a continuous pen movement. Even for the block letters on the right - these are separated - the image is of much lower quality than is the case with printed and typed material. As you write, the pressure of your hand changes constantly; inevitably, some parts are written much lighter than others. Moreover, in most cases pens are used which do not provide the necessary thickness.
5-7 USER'S GUIDE The proprietary handprinting technology from I.R.I.S. is based on more than 1 million writing samples. All natural writing styles are supported: American and European ones and sevens are recognized with equal comfort. It requires no training phase or imposed style to recognize somebody’s handwriting.
5-8 Let’s give an example: we define Alt+X as the hotkey for reading mode switching. For starters, we select the setting alphanumeric as our reading mode. We now go to our Windows application and scan in some text. When we execute the keyboard command Alt+X inside our Windows application, the IRISPen switches to bar code reading. When we repeat the keyboard command, the reading mode successively changes to black-and-white and greyscale bitmaps to clipboard, handprinting, numeric and back to alphanumeric.
5-9 USER'S GUIDE In our example, the single pen button click will execute the switching of the reading mode. ADDING AUDITIVE FEEDBACK It goes without saying that you can activate the speech feature to get auditive feedback of your handprinted numerics. For the “hands- and eyes-busy” activity of reading handprinting, auditive feedback is certainly an option.
5 - 10 speech synthesis will add the word "area code" where it is useful etc. These routines are language-dependent; no less than 10 languages can be supported! Refer to Chapter 3 for more information. LEARNING MORE Where less than optimal reading results are obtained, it may be useful to adapt your writing style and optimize your forms to maximize your productivity. Appendix D discusses a few simple rules that can teach you why substitutions occur and how to avoid them. 6chapter5.
6-1 USER'S GUIDE Chapter 6 COMMAND REFERENCE This chapter provides an extensive reference guide to the commands of the IRISPen, the IRISPen Executive and the IRISPen Translator.
6-2 The selected values are displayed in the IRISPen status window. Whether the status window is displayed or not depends on the option "Status Window" under the "Options" menu. The "OK" or "Minimize" button is clicked to have the IRISPen application running in the background. To restore the IRISPen application, the user can right- or double-click on the status window, and he can right-click on the IRISPen control on the Windows taskbar and select the command "Open".
6-3 USER'S GUIDE restores the IRISPen application window from within the user’s active application. Reading Mode Determines the reading mode. The options alphanumeric, black-and-white bitmap to clipboard, greyscale bitmap to clipboard and numeric are available. For the IRISPen Executive, two reading modes are added: bar codes and handprinting. For translation help and language learning with the IRISPen Translator, the user should obviously select the option "Alphanumeric". 7chapter6.
6-4 For financial applications, the set of recognized characters can be limited to numeric symbols, in which case only the characters '0' to '9' and some punctuation symbols such as '.', ',' etc. will be recognized. Any chance of recognition errors such as the confusion between '5' and "S", '0' and "O", '9' and "g", '8' and "B" etc. is eliminated. Fully customized character sets can be programmed by the user with the "Output Subset" button on the toolbar.
6-5 USER'S GUIDE There is an alternative way of selecting the bar code and handprinting reading modes. Unless bar code reading is already enabled as secondary reading mode with the option "Bar Codes" in the IRISPen application window, clicking on the "Bar Codes" or "Handprinting" button on the toolbar defines settings and selects the corresponding reading mode at the same time. When bar codes and handprinted symbols are read, the language selection in the application window does not apply.
6-6 The IRISPen even copes with mixed alphabets of Greek or Cyrillic and Western characters. The software can switch languages in the middle of a sentence without any help from the user! When Western words pop up in Greek and Cyrillic - many untranscrible proper names, brand names etc. are written using the familiar Western symbols -, the IRISPen can switch to the correct alphabet automatically.
6-7 USER'S GUIDE the same initial, he presses the letter several times to go through the options. Let’s give an example: the IRISPen reads Polish and Portuguese. By pressing "P" once, the user selects Polish, by pressing "P" a second time, he selects Portuguese, and by pressing "P" a third time, he’s back on Polish. (To go to another letter, say T, he presses BackSpace before he enters the "T" character.) The status window indicates the selected language.
6-8 alongside an English text, he should select French as language to ensure that the accentuated characters such as ç, é and ù get recognized correctly. For the IRISPen Translator, the language setting is used to indicate the original or “source” language. It takes two parameters to indicate the translation direction: the option "Language" indicates the source language, the option "Translate to" in the IRISPen application window indicates the target language.
6-9 USER'S GUIDE translation in a different window to save the original text and the translation in separate files. Whereas this option enables the translation of scanned text, the option "Translate Clipboard" under the "Options" menu allows the user to translate text copied to the clipboard - text entered on the keyboard, wordprocessor files, mail messages received in a foreign language, Internet pages displayed with a web browser etc.
6 - 10 Related Commands The option "Translate Clipboard" under the "Options" menu allows the user to translate texts copied to the clipboard - text entered on the keyboard, wordprocessor files, mail messages received in a foreign language, Internet pages displayed with a web browser etc. Dot Matrix (IRISPen Executive) Determines whether the user recognizes “normal” or dot matrix printed documents.
6 - 11 USER'S GUIDE When the reading mode "Black-and-White Bitmap to Clipboard" or "Greyscale Bitmap to Clipboard" is enabled, no output target can be selected: the scanned images are always copied to the Windows clipboard for later pasting. With the IRISPen Translator, the active application functions as the output target when the source text must be saved. The translation appears in the “popup” translation window, the "Copy" button of that translation window allows the user to paste the translation.
6 - 12 natural prosody. When the text-to-speech module has to pronounce individual lines, rather than full sentences, the intonation may be somewhat less than “human”. The multiline reading mode is simply mandatory for the IRISPen Translator, it is essential for language learning and translation aid.
6 - 13 USER'S GUIDE The user can right-click the IRISPen control to call up several frequent commands: he can enable the greyscale image window, the status window and the scan test, restore and close the IRISPen application and get access to the on-line help. Open This command restores the IRISPen application which normally runs in the background. The user can now modify the various system settings.
6 - 14 Related Commands The user can also enable the status window with the command "Status Window" under the "Options" menu and by loading IRISPen settings with the command "Open Settings" under the "File" menu. Scan Test Enables the scan test mode where the user displays a black-and-white version of the greyscale images generated by the pen scanner and the reading results. Refer to the button "Scan Test" on the toolbar for an extensive discussion of the scan test mode.
6 - 15 USER'S GUIDE Related Command The user can also quit the IRISPen application with the command "Exit" under the "File" menu. GREYSCALE IMAGE WINDOW The greyscale image window displays the “raw” greyscale images as they are generated by the pen scanner. Scanning in greyscale is in some instances necessary to obtain good OCR results. When text is printed on a color background, scanning in color may create the tone differences that are lacking in black-and-white images.
6 - 16 STATUS WINDOW This window displays multiple system information useful to the user and provides direct access to the IRISPen application window. The user can drag the status window to any appropriate position on the screen.
6 - 17 USER'S GUIDE The user can right-click or double-click the status window to restore the IRISPen application window. Related Commands The user can enable the status window by right-clicking the IRISPen control on the Windows taskbar and selecting the command "Status Window", by selecting the command "Status Window" from the "Options" menu and by loading IRISPen settings with the command "Open Settings" under the "File" menu.
6 - 18 click the "Copy" button of the translation window to make it disappear. The "Copy" button copies the translation to the clipboard: the translation window disappears as there is no further need to display it on-screen. The "Copy" button allows the user to transfer the translated text to other windows via the clipboard. The user can paste the translation in the same window as the one where the scanned text is placed to study the foreign sentences and their meaning comfortably later on.
6 - 19 USER'S GUIDE Two buttons - "Bar Codes" and "Handprinting" - are limited to the IRISPen Executive; the "Speech" button is common to the IRISPen Executive and IRISPen Translator. Scan Test Enables the scan test mode where the user displays a black-and-white version of the greyscale images generated by the pen scanner and the reading results. Scan tests are used to get acquainted with the operation of the IRISPen. The I.R.I.S. test sheets can be used to this end. 7chapter6.
6 - 20 Furthermore, the scan test window is equipped with advanced imaging features to adjust the scanning to the color tones of the document. Scanning in greyscale is in some instances necessary to obtain good OCR results. When text is printed on a color background, scanning in color may create the tone differences that are lacking in black-and-white images.
6 - 21 USER'S GUIDE The option "Despeckle" concerns the black-and-white image. “Despeckling” means that the “parasite pixels” (also called “salt and pepper noise”) will be removed from the black-and-white images. The user shouldn’t erase spots that are too big, otherwise he runs the risk of erasing the dots on "i" etc., portions of dot matrix letters etc.! Clicking the button "Load Image" allows to open and recognize prescanned images. This is purely a diagnostic feature.
6 - 22 Related Commands The user can also enable the scan test mode by right-clicking the IRISPen control on the Windows toolbar and selecting the command "Scan Test", and by selecting the command "Scan Test" under the "Options" menu. The user can enable the greyscale image window by right-clicking the IRISPen control on the Windows taskbar and selecting the command "Greyscale Image", and by selecting the command "Greyscale Image" under the "Options" menu.
6 - 23 USER'S GUIDE Some frequent options such as , , etc. are presented by default, but with the option "Custom", the user can program any keyboard command to be executed or character string to be inserted when the pen button is pressed. The option "Null" is selected to disable the applicable pen button command. When reading lines of text, the pen button can be programmed to execute an command. Pressing the button ensures that a new paragraph is started.
6 - 24 Furthermore, the pen button makes it easier to insert the scanned text at the right location. When data is entered in a database, the key can be assigned to the pen button to move the cursor to the next field. One application is encoding addresses from business cards, brochures, catalogs etc. collected during a trade show in a database. Depending on the addresses, some fields will be skipped.
6 - 25 USER'S GUIDE window enables a mixed reading mode where bar codes are read alongside “normal” data. The parameter "Reading Mode" in the IRISPen application window determines what kind of data is read, this option determines whether read bar codes can be read at the same time. The mixed reading mode is limited to the IRISPen Executive.) When multiline scanning is enabled with the option "Multiline" in the IRISPen application window, the pen button takes on a special meaning.
6 - 26 Alignment Indicates how the scanned line of text is interpreted. Is cropping applied to the recognized text? Is data or is a keyboard command to be added in front and behind? The cropping options can be used in several situations. First of all, to isolate keywords from their context. If only specific words should be entered in a database, the user can start scanning somewhere in the word in front of and end scanning in the word after the word to be captured.
6 - 27 USER'S GUIDE Another example: when reading text set in columns with a small gutter, it is not always easy to isolate a column. The word cropping allows to scan part of the neighboring columns without generating unwanted output. A minor option, "Ignore Rejected Characters in First and Last Position", concerns unrecognized characters: unknown symbols at the beginning and end can be ignored.
6 - 28 option is enabled, end hyphens are deleted and the ending code - if one is defined - is ignored. When two lines are read, "The new presi-" and "dent waved from the balcony.", the resulting output is "The new president waved from the balcony.". The end hyphen of "presi-" is ignored and so is the “normal” suffix . If the two following lines are "His lovely wife" and "had joined him.", the output will be "His lovely wife had joined him.
6 - 29 USER'S GUIDE When a limited number of symbols should be recognized, the IRISPen’s accuracy and speed can be improved by narrowing down the output subset. The user could for instance enter serial numbers and product codes where the numerals are completed by a few alphabetic symbols in a database. This is all the more important as OCR may generate recognition errors for those symbols with very similar characteristics.
6 - 30 checks, bank statements etc. I.R.I.S. has a specialized version of the IRISPen for the financial market.) It should be stressed that the IRISPen does not recognize all characters as are displayed in this window. Some special characters such as ¥ and © are not recognized by the IRISPen but can be used in character and table frame conversions, in starting and ending codes and be inserted by the pen button clicks.
6 - 31 USER'S GUIDE Bar Codes (IRISPen Executive) Enables the bar code reading mode and defines the bar code settings. The bar code reading mode can also be selected in the IRISPen application window. When this button is clicked, the user is simultaneously given access to the bar code settings. The user is given full control over the used symbologies. By default, all bar code symbologies are enabled and the IRISPen will autodetect the used symbology.
6 - 32 Refer to chapter 4 for scanning tips and design rules for forms and labels; refer to appendix B for a detailed discussion of the supported bar code symbologies. The user can limit the recognition to specific bar code types by clicking the corresponding options. The "Default" button restores the default bar code settings. Additional options are available for the symbologies EAN-13, EAN-8, UPCA and Code 39.
6 - 33 USER'S GUIDE The “hands- and eyes-busy” activity of reading bar codes can be combined with auditive feedback by enabling the "Speech" button on the toolbar. Bar code settings are included in the IRISPen settings. The command "Save Settings" under the "File" menu and terminating the software with the option "Save Settings on Exit" enabled, include the selected values in the IRISPen settings.
6 - 34 others. With contiguous spacing, the space between two characters is considerably reduced. Some characters may occassionally touch each other and the zones covered by a single character may overlap. It is mandatory to set this parameter correctly. When contiguous handprinting is read with the segmentation set to spaced, some characters may be skipped by the system. With contiguous printing, broken characters may be misread as double characters.
6 - 35 USER'S GUIDE phone numbers are read, the speech synthesis will add the word "area code" where it is useful etc. Refer to appendix C for scanning tips and writing and form design rules. Speech (IRISPen Executive - IRISPen Translator) Activates the “Read & Speak” speech synthesis. With the IRISPen Executive, speech synthesis provides clear, natural sounding auditive feedback of the recognized data.
6 - 36 The user can repeat the pronunciation of the last scan (or “flush” when the multiline mode is enabled) by right-clicking the "Speech" button and by selecting the command "Repeat Speech" under the "Options" menu. The user can also create a hotkey for the speech repetition with the command "Hotkeys" under the "Settings" menu.
6 - 37 USER'S GUIDE FILE MENU The "File" menu has a limited function: it lets the user open and save IRISPen settings and quit the software. The last four settings are also available in the "File" menu. Open Settings Loads IRISPen configurations.
6 - 38 table frame and character conversions, the output subset, alignment options (including starting and ending codes), the bar code and handprinting settings (IRISPen Executve), whether the speech synthesis (IRISPen Executive and IRISPen Translator) or system sound is enabled, whether the clipboard translation (IRISPen Translator), the left-handed scanning and the image inversion are enabled.
6 - 39 USER'S GUIDE Settings files contain all operational parameters: the reading mode, the document language, the target language for the translation (IRISPen Translator), whether dot matrix reading mode (IRISPen Executive) and the mixed reading mode with secondary bar code reading is enabled (IRISPen Executive), the output target, whether the multiline reading mode is enabled (IRISPen Executive and IRISPen Translator), the programming of pen button clicks and hotkeys, table frame and character conversi
6 - 40 Related Commands An easier way of saving the current settings as default is enabling the option "Save Settings on Exit" under the "Options" menu before the software is terminated. These settings will be used at the next startup. Settings are loaded into memory with the command "Open Settings" under the "File" menu. Exit Closes the IRISPen software.
6 - 41 USER'S GUIDE Last Settings The four settings last used are displayed under the "Exit" command. Clicking on the files suffices to load the settings.
6 - 42 All text-related commands - alignment, character and table frame conversions, customized character sets - are disabled when the reading modes "Bar Codes" and "Handprinting" are active. Hotkeys Allows the user to program shortcut keys for two common operations: restoring the IRISPen application quickly to the foreground and switching between the reading modes from within the target applications.
6 - 43 USER'S GUIDE modes from within the active application. (To combine a reading mode with bar code reading, a mixed reading mode can be enabled with the option "Bar Codes" in the IRISPen application window.) When the user has selected "Alphanumeric" as his reading mode and he clicks the pen button, the IRISPen switches to the mode "Bar Codes".
6 - 44 Table Frame Conversion Allows the interpretation of the table frame that separates table cells. Some common options are presented by default, but the user can define any combination of character and keyboard commands. When the user selects , the IRISPen software will execute a whenever a vertical bar is encountered. As a moves the cursor to the next cell, scanning a table into a spreadsheet will put the individual figures in separate cells.
6 - 45 USER'S GUIDE Related Command Table frame conversion can also be enabled by loading IRISPen settings with the command "Open Settings" under the "File" menu. Character Conversion Allows the replacement and erasure of recognized characters. The IRISPen not only recognizes data but also replaces them: the user can recognize a character and replace it by any combination of characters and keyboard commands. He can even delete a character (replace it by nothing).
6 - 46 A realistic example is scanning a price list mentioning the currency into a spreadsheet. As the currency is of no interest, the "$" symbol is erased to filter the currency from the output. Related Commands End hyphens in body text can be erased automatically when the option "Restore Paragraph" is enabled. Refer to the "Alignment" button on the toolbar. Character conversions can also be enabled by loading IRISPen settings with the command "Open Settings" under the "File" menu.
6 - 47 USER'S GUIDE Handprinting (IRISPen Executive) Refer to the "Handprinting" button on the toolbar. Output Subset Refer to the "Output Subset" button on the toolbar. Refer to the "Output Subset" button on the toolbar. OPTIONS MENU The "Options" menu enables the scan test mode and contains some optional system settings. With the IRISPen Translator, this menu also contains the speech repetition command and enables the clipboard translation mode.
6 - 48 Left-Handed Scanning This option adjusts the scanning direction for left-handed users. By default, the pen scanner is operated from left to right, but with this option enabled, the pen scanner is ruled over the text from right to left. This only works when the pen scanner is held rotated by 180° so that the pen button faces towards the user, while the document itself retains its normal orientation. The software “recomposes” a correct image by rotating it by 180°.
6 - 49 USER'S GUIDE Translate Clipboard (IRISPen Translator) Enables the clipboard translation mode. When clipboard translation is enabled, the user is prompted to translate all text copied to the Windows clipboard. The translation window displays the button "Translate Clipboard?" as soon as text is copied to the clipboard. (Graphics copied to the clipboard are simply ignored.) The user clicks this button to generate a translation for the contents of the clipboard.
6 - 50 Status Window Refer to the command "Status Window" on the IRISPen control on the Windows taskbar. Save Settings on Exit This option guarantees that the current settings are saved as default settings when the user quits the IRISPen software. These settings will be loaded into memory at the next startup. The default settings are saved in the file DEFAULT.IPC. When this file is erased, the factory settings apply.
6 - 51 USER'S GUIDE The registration wizard guides the user through the licence registration process comfortably. The user can register in many ways: by sending in the registration card or faxing its electronic counterpart, by calling I.R.I.S. during working hours and by filling out a registration form on the I.R.I.S. web site. Registering the IRISPen licence will allow I.R.I.S. to keep the user informed of future product developments and related I.R.I.S. products.
6 - 52 IRISPen Executive and to the translation and language learning tool IRISPen Translator. They can also install some IRISPen options. The IRISPen product range uses a modular approach: by installing an upgrade, the user adds whatever extra feature he doesn’t have yet. He can upgrade from the IRISPen Standard to the IRISPen Executive and to the IRISPen Translator, from the IRISPen Translator to the IRISPen Executive, from an IRISPen Executive to an IRISPen Translator etc. 7chapter6.
6 - 53 USER'S GUIDE The software-only upgrade to the IRISPen Executive offers numerous major add-on capabilities: speech synthesis, bar code reading, handprinting recognition, recognition of dot matrix documents, advanced image adjustment features and multiline scanning. As a result, the IRISPen becomes unquestionably the most versatile scanner available! The IRISPen Executive offers speech synthesis of all read data.
6 - 54 The IRISPen Executive also offers recognition of dot matrix printed documents. Dot matrix symbols are made up of isolated, separate dots, and highly specialized recognition routines are required to recognize them. Multiline scanning increases the “user-friendliness” of the IRISPen: it is most useful when the user reads text excerpts.
6 - 55 USER'S GUIDE and English-Spanish. Contact I.R.I.S. to learn the availability of new language pairs. The speech synthesis opens the door to a world of new applications. To learn how to speak a language, the user can just scan a text and hear the PC pronounce the words. The speech feature is offered for the language pair: the English-French version of the IRISPen Translator for instance has the English and French speech libraries.
6 - 56 HELP MENU The "Help" menu gives the user on-line information about the IRISPen and its use. Some last-minute information may not be included in this manual. The user is therefore recommended to check the on-line help system for additional information on the IRISPen’s capabilities. Help Topics Allows to navigate through the on-line help system. The available information cannot only be consulted on-screen but also printed out. 7chapter6.
6 - 57 USER'S GUIDE Related Command The user can also access the on-line help by right-clicking the IRISPen control on the Windows taskbar and selecting the command "Help Topics". Product Support Informs the user how to get IRISPen product support. 7chapter6.
6 - 58 Contact I.R.I.S. Gives the coordinates of the I.R.I.S. offices. 7chapter6.
6 - 59 USER'S GUIDE I.R.I.S. on the Internet Gives access to the I.R.I.S. home page (www.irislink.com). The user can also access the application icon "I.R.I.S. on the Internet" in the submenu "I.R.I.S. Applications - IRISPen" under the "Programs" menu to get direct access to the I.R.I.S. home page. About the IRISPen Opens the IRISPen title screen, where the current version and the copyrights are mentioned. The user can get direct access to the I.R.I.S. home page by clicking on the URL (www.irislink.com).
6 - 60 7chapter6.
A-1 USER'S GUIDE Appendix A PRODUCT DESCRIPTION This appendix gives a detailed product description of the IRISPen, the IRISPen Executive and the IRISPen Translator.
A-2 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS IRISPen Standard q a 486 based Intel PC or compatible. A Pentium based PC is recommended q 50 MB hard disk space. 40 MB of disk space suffices when the electronic manual is left on the CD-ROM q the Windows ME, 2000 or 98 operating system q a free USB port to connect the IRISPen scanner q a 256 color monitor to display the greyscale images generated by the greyscale pen scanner IRISPen Executive q a 486 based Intel PC or compatible.
A-3 USER'S GUIDE IRISPen options q to install additional speech modules, 10 MB of free hard disk space is required per language q 10 languages are currently available: English and British English, Brazilian, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Mexican, Russian and Spanish Mac OS version q version for Mac OS platform available q cross-platform compatibility of IRISPen hardware with all Macintosh desktop computers IRISPEN STANDARD Font support proprietary omnifont PCR-II (“Pen Character Recognition”) technolo
A-4 linguistic modules using knowledge about syllables and a 150,000 word lexicon per language Character modes alphanumeric and numeric customized character sets character conversion table frame detection Character sizes 8 to 22 point (0.11 to 0.31" or 0.28 to 0.78 cm.
A-5 USER'S GUIDE Processing speed up to 1,000 characters per second Line length up to 12" (30.5 cm.
A-6 adds speech synthesis, bar code reading, numeric handprinting recognition, recognition of dot matrix documents and mutliline scanning a software-only upgrade from the IRISPen Standard and IRISPen Translator is available Speech synthesis clear, natural sounding auditive feedback of recognized data “hands- and eyes busy” data collection and multimedia applications high-quality technology from Lernout & Hauspie requires Windows compatible sound card a single version of the speech library is supplied, the
A-7 USER'S GUIDE Numeric handprinting recognition accurate, flexible recognition of numerals and the symbols , (comma), .
A-8 multilingual support of 10 languages (English and British English, Brazilian, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Mexican, Russian and Spanish) Translation bidirectional sentence translation of language pair includes grammatical knowledge (tense, person, gender etc.) fully automatic, real-time translation without any keyboard input translation of all text sent to clipboard (text entered on keyboard, text files, e-mail messages, Internet web pages etc.
A-9 USER'S GUIDE incorporates knowledge of phrases, abbreviations and normalized text strings Translation speed up to 50 words per second Language pairs English-French, English-German, English-Italian, English-Portuguese and English-Spanish contact I.R.I.S. to learn the availability of new language pairs IRISPEN FOR BANKING WORLD Reading of financial documents high-accuracy reading of specialized banking fonts (OCR-A, OCR-B, E13B and CMC-7) support of bar code symbology Code 128 contact I.R.I.S.
A - 10 multilingual support of 10 languages (English and British English, Brazilian, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Mexican, Russian and Spanish) to install additional speech modules, 10 MB of free hard disk space is required per language Bar code reading support of bar code symbology Code 128
B-1 USER'S GUIDE Appendix B SYNTAX RULES SPEECH SYNTHESIS I.R.I.S. test sheets are provided with the IRISPen Executive and the IRISPen Translator to get a better idea of the highly advanced nature of “Read & Speak”. They allow you to experiment with the text-to-speech capability of your IRISPen and get aware of the linguistic rules you should respect when you want to correctly read “normalized” character strings such as telephone numbers, bank account numbers, date and time indications etc.
B-2 AMERICAN ENGLISH SYNTAX RULES Numbers Cardinal numbers of up to 15 digits are pronounced as full numbers, longeer digit strings are pronounced digit by digit. Numbers that start with a zero are equally pronounced digit by digit. 123456789012345 One hundred twenty-three trillion four hundred... 1234567890123456 One two three four five six seven eight nine zero... 007 Zero zero seven Comma’s may be used to separate groups of three digits.
B-3 USER'S GUIDE 4,567th Four thousand five hundred sixty seventh Roman numbers are also pronounced as ordinal numbers. (The symbols I, V and X in isolation are not identified as ordinal numbers.) XX Twentieth Queen Mary I Queen Mary the first Digit strings composed of up to 3 digits, a slash and up to 5 digits are pronounced as fractions.
B-4 Bank Account and Social Security Numbers Bank account numbers and social security numbers are pronounced digit by digit when hyphens separate the digit groups. 13456-000-123476 000-1234564-87 049-65-5432 Dates Dates are recognized in the American format - where the month precedes the day - and the European format - where the day precedes the month. The day and the month are composed of one or two digits, the year of two or four digits. The digit groups are separated by a slash or a hyphen.
B-5 USER'S GUIDE The abbreviations for the decennia are recognized. 60s 70s 80s 90s Time Indications Time indications are recognized when one of the following formats is respected. Hours only 9AM 12 pm Hours and minutes 9:00 Nine o’clock 11:15 Eleven fifteen from 5:20 am to 8:30 pm From five twenty am to eight thirty pm Hours, minutes and seconds Durations are indicated by adding a third group of digits.
B-6 £3,100.50 Three thousand one hundred pounds and fifty pence ¥2.15 Two yen and fifteen sen The currency abbreviations DM, USD, dol. and Schil. must follow the numeral with a space added. 10 USD Ten US dollars 100 dol. One hundred dollars 25 DM Twenty-five Deutsche marks 88 Schil. Eighty-eight Schillings Other currencies must be written in full and follow the numeral.
B-7 USER'S GUIDE Context rules Dr. Johnson lives in Elm Dr. St. Peter’s St. Dr. Johnson lives in St. Peter’s St. Doctor Johnson lives in Elm drive Saint Peter’s street Doctor Johnson lives in Saint Peter’s street Acronyms Acronyms are pronounced as normal words. NASA NATO IRIS UNESCO Initialisms Initialisms are pronounced letter by letter. FBI CIA IRS FDA CDC TV Ph.D. MBA GQ ABC BC BSc.
B-8 When more than two digits occur after the decimal point, these are pronounced digit by digit. 104.2 5.25 5.151 All cardinal numbers from 1 to 999 followed by a or o are pronounced as ordinal numbers. So are all cardinal numbers of up to 15 digits that start with a digit other than zero and are followed by a or o. Periods may be used to separate groups of three digits.
B-9 USER'S GUIDE Dates can also be specified in “written”, alphabetic formats. 8 jul. 98 30 abril 2000 Time Indications Time indications are recognized when one of the following formats is respected. Hours only One or two digits are used for the hour which is followed by "h" or "hs" (without a space). 06h 12hs Hours and minutes One or two digits are used for the hour followed by "h" (without a space); two digits are used for the minutes followed by "min" (without a space).
B - 10 Currency indicators can be followed by one to six digits (with one or two digits after the comma) and the number indicator "milhão", "bilhão", "trilhão", "mi", "bi" or "tri". R$23 milhões US$10,5 bi Other currencies must be written in full and follow the numeral. Alternatively, you can program the IRISPen to for instance replace "F" by "francos" with the "Character Conversion" command under the "Settings" menu.
B - 11 USER'S GUIDE BRITISH ENGLISH SYNTAX RULES Numbers Cardinal numbers of up to 15 digits are pronounced as full numbers, digit strings that contain more than 15 digits are pronounced digit by digit. Numbers that start with a zero are equally pronounced digit by digit. 123456789012345 One hundred twenty-three trillion four hundred... 1234567890123456 One two three four five six seven eight nine zero one... 007 Zero zero seven Comma’s may be used to separate groups of three digits.
B - 12 4,567th Four thousand five hundred and sixty seventh Roman numbers are also pronounced as ordinal numbers. (The symbols I, V and X in isolation are not identified as ordinal numbers.) XX Twentieth Digit strings composed of up to 3 digits, a slash and up to 5 digits are pronounced as fractions. 1/3 to 1/2 One over three to one half 3/2 Three halves 123/45678 One hundred and twenty-three over forty-five thousand six hundred and seventy eight Telephone Numbers Telephone numbers are read digit by digit.
B - 13 USER'S GUIDE Bank Account Numbers Bank account numbers are pronounced digit by digit when hyphens separate the digit groups. 000-1234564-87 049-65-5432 Dates Dates are recognized in the European format: the day precedes the month. The day and the month are composed of one or two digits, the year of two or four digits. The digit groups are separated by a slash or a hyphen.
B - 14 Hours and minutes 10:30 Ten thirty 11:15 Eleven fifteen from 5:20 am to 8:30 pm From five twenty am to eight thirty pm Hours, minutes and seconds Durations are indicated by adding a third group of digits. Two formats are supported: the digit groups are separated by ":" or you get the format hour:minutes'seconds". 12:15:20 Twelve hours, fifteen minutes and twenty seconds 11:55'46" Eleven hours, fifty-five minutes and forty-six seconds Currencies Currency indications with $, £ and ¥ are recognized.
B - 15 USER'S GUIDE 20 francs 100 liras Abbreviations A standard dictionary includes all common abbreviations. Ambiguous abbreviations are solved based on the linguistic context: "Dr." is pronounced as "doctor" when followed by a capital letter and as "drive" in all other cases, "St." is pronounced as "saint" when followed by a capital letter and as "street" in other cases. Dictionary contained abbreviations ASAP TTS Dr. e.g. etc. Ltd. Bros. Jr. Sgt. Lt. Col. Gen. Mr. Mrs. ca. St. Eng. mm. cm. Tel. Inc.
B - 16 CD MC OK VP VIP DUTCH SYNTAX RULES Numbers Cardinal numbers of up to 15 digits are pronounced as full numbers, longer digit strings are pronounced digit by digit. Periods can be used to separate the digit groups. Leading zeros are pronounced separately. 123456789012345 Honderd drieëntwintig triljoen vier honderd ... 123456 Honderd drieëntwintig duizend vierhonderd zesenvijftig 1234567890123456 Eén twee drie vier vijf zes zeven acht negen nul één...
B - 17 USER'S GUIDE Telephone Numbers Telephone numbers are recognized when parentheses, slashes or hyphens are used to separate the country code and/or area code from the actual telephone number. Spaces and periods are allowed to separate groups of digits. The telephone numbers are pronounced in groups of two or three digits, a pause is inserted where a period or space occurs. 030/288 65 27 (030)2886527 030/288.65.27 0031/30/288.65.
B - 18 Time Indications Time indications are recognized when one of the following formats is respected. The indicators "u", "u.", "h", "h." and "uur" can be used. 8:15u 10u30 10:05u. 10u.45 7h 10.15h 20:15h 10h50 10:20 PM Currencies All common currency indications are supported. Most currency symbol can precede and follow the numeral. 100 fr. 10 BF. 65 BEF 20 Eur. 25 £ 150$ 10 DM. USD 9 ¥5 Abbreviations A standard dictionary includes all common abbreviations. Dictionary contained abbreviations bv. b.v. ir.
B - 19 USER'S GUIDE Initialisms Initialisms are pronounced letter by letter. EEG VDAB Words consisting of consonants only are considered to be initialisms. So are alphabetic strings (with or without periods) that have two or more uppercase consonants. They are pronounced letter by letter. TV BTW PS NB VZW CV PR CD PC PK FRENCH SYNTAX RULES Numbers Cardinal numbers of up to 15 digits are pronounced as full numbers, longer digit strings are pronounced digit by digit.
B - 20 Roman numbers - numbers up to 38 that consist of combinations of X, V and I - are supported. Roman numbers may be used separately and be combined with proper names. Louis XIV XIX Romans up to 28, followed by "e", "e.", "E" or "E." are read as ordinal numbers. Xe Ie. Telephone Numbers Telephone numbers are recognized when parentheses, slashes or hyphens are used to separate the country code and/or area code from the actual telephone number. Spaces and periods are allowed to separate groups of digits.
B - 21 USER'S GUIDE Dates Dates are recognized in the following format: day precedes month precedes year. The day and the month are composed of one or two digits, the year of two or four digits. The digit groups are separated by a period, a slash or a hyphen. 1/1/2001 Premier janvier deux mille un 25.12.2000 Vingt-cinq décembre deux mille 13-12-99 Treize décembre quatre vingt dix-neuf 25/12/00 Vingt-cinq décembre deux milles Dates can also be specified in “written”, alphabetic formats. le 1er janv.
B - 22 Other currencies must be written in full and follow the numeral. Alternatively, you can program the IRISPen to for instance replace "F" by "francs" with the "Character Conversion" command under the "Settings" menu. Alphanumeric Strings With alphanumeric strings, a combination of letters and digits without spaces, the alphabetic part is spelled and the numeric part is read as a full number. KX4956 125DC20 Abbreviations A standard dictionary includes all common abbreviations.
B - 23 USER'S GUIDE GERMAN SYNTAX RULES Numbers Cardinal numbers of up to 15 digits are pronounced as full numbers, longer digit strings are pronounced digit by digit. Leading zeros are pronounced separately. 123.456.789.012.345 Hundertdreiundzwanzig Trillionen... 007 Nul nul sieben Periods may be used to separate groups of three digits. 1.234 123.456.789 Decimal numbers may contain up to 15 digits before the comma and up to 15 digits after the comma.
B - 24 numbers are pronounced in groups of two or three digits, a pause is inserted where a period, hyphen or space occurs. (041) 317 11 33 (041) 317.11.33 (03 35) 23 02 16 (03 35) 23.02.16 Bank Account Numbers Bank account numbers are recognized when hyphens are inserted between the digit groups. A short pause is inserted at the place of a hyphen. LG Stuttgart 303-504-52 BLZ 900-564-34 Dates Dates are recognized in the following format: day precedes month precedes year.
B - 25 USER'S GUIDE 5$ Fünf Dollar Other currencies must be written in full words and follow the numeral. Alternatively, you can program the IRISPen to for example replace "F" by "Franken" with the "Character Conversion" command under the "Settings" menu. 20 Franken 100 Gulden Abbreviations A standard dictionary includes all common abbreviations. Dictionary contained abbreviations bzw. derg. usw. Fa. Dr. ca. Chr. KFZ u.a. MwSt. Fr. inkl. Str. mm cm Tel. kg Nr. min. max.
B - 26 ITALIAN SYNTAX RULES Numbers Cardinal numbers of up to 13 digits are pronounced as full numbers, longer digit strings are pronounced digit by digit. Periods may be used to separate groups of three digits. Leading zeros are pronounced separately. 1234567890123 1.234 123.456.789 007 Decimal numbers may contain up to 13 digits before the comma and up to 13 digits after the comma. Periods may be used to separate groups of three digits (before the comma).
B - 27 USER'S GUIDE Dates Dates are recognized in the following format: day precedes month precedes year. The day and the month are composed of one or two digits, the year of two or four digits. The digit groups are separated by a slash or a hyphen. 3/3/99 3/3/00 08/02/99 8/2/2000 01/01/1999 8-2-99 8-2-00 08-02-99 8-2-1999 01-01-1999 The date can be preceded by "l'". l’8-02-99 Time Indications Time indications are recognized when one of the following formats is respected.
B - 28 "chilometro" when preceded by the number 1 and as "chilometri" in all other cases. Dictionary contained abbreviations ecc. dott. es. sig. USA p.zza km Acronyms Acronyms are pronounced as normal words. RAI SIP Initialisms Initialisms are pronounced letter by letter. CD PC LSD BMW MEXICAN SPANISH AND SPANISH SYNTAX RULES Numbers Cardinal numbers of up to 8 digits are pronounced as full numbers, longer digit strings are pronounced digit by digit. Leading zeros are pronounced separately. 12.345.678 1.
B - 29 USER'S GUIDE 123.456.789.012.345,12345678 Ciento veintitres billones cuatrocientos... Cardinal numbers followed by the ordinal suffix ° and a are pronounced as ordinal numbers. The numbers 1 and 3 may also be followed by "er". 2° 4a 3er Roman numbers are also supported. In isolation, they are pronounced as cardinal numbers. CXXII Ciento veintidós Roman numbers from I (1) to X (10) are pronounced as ordinal numbers when they follow or precede a word that begins with an uppercase letter.
B - 30 Dates Dates are recognized in the following format: day precedes month precedes year. The day and the month are composed of one or two digits, the year of two or four digits. The digit groups are separated by a slash or a hyphen. 12/12/93 12-12-99 01-1-00 3-3-95 3/3/95 8/12/1999 12-12-2000 01/01/2001 01-01-1995 Time Indications Time indications are recognized when one of the following formats is respected. The hour indicator contains one or two digits, the minute indicator contains two digits.
B - 31 USER'S GUIDE ms s. Tel. mm kg Av. c/ P.D. Sra. ej. ed. NIF Acronyms Acronyms are pronounced as normal words. EPTA NATO UNICEF BOE ONCE TALGO INEM Initialisms Initialisms are pronounced letter by letter. IPC PC CD OK cm PVP gr Sr. IVA RENFE RUSSIAN SYNTAX RULES Numbers Cardinal numbers of up to 15 digits are pronounced as full numbers. Longer digit strings are split into groups of two or three digits - these digit groups are pronounced as full numbers. Leading zeros are pronounced separately.
B - 32 Decimal numbers are equally declined in the nominative/accusative case. Bank Account Numbers Digit strings consisting of 5 to 15 digits are pronounced in clusters of two or three cardinal numbers when they are preceded by one of the following entries. расчёmный счёm Текущиu счёт сберегательныll счёт Сб/счёm р/с т/с сб/с These entries may be followed by a colon. расчетный счет: 112-1223445-76 р/с: 2354545 т/с 65008903 You can also use hyphens to separate digit groups.
B - 33 USER'S GUIDE Dates Dates are recognized in the following format: day precedes month precedes year. The day and the month are composed of one or two digits, the year of two or four digits. The digit groups are separated by a slash or a period. These dates must be followed by the word года or its abbreviation г. 19.12.97 года. Девятнадцатое декабря девяносто седьмого года 27/04/1998 г. Двадцать седь.iчое апреля тысяча девятьсот Девяносто вось,wого года 5.12.2001 г.
B - 34 Hours and minutes 11:15 Одиннадцать пятнадцаm 11.15 Одиннадцать пятнадцать 11 час. 15 Мин. одиннадцать часов пятнадцать минут Hours, minutes and seconds 15:30:45 Пятнадцать тридцать сорок пять 11 час. 15 мин. 41 сек. Одиннадцать часов пятнадцать минут сорок одна секунда Time indications are declined in the nominative/accusative case. Currencies Currency indications with $ and DM. are recognized. The currency symbols may precede and follow the numeral.
B - 35 USER'S GUIDE Other currencies are written in full; they follow the digit string. 100 франков 20000 лuр 60 фунтов стерлuнгов Currency amounts are declined in the nominative/accusative case. Abbreviations A standard dictionary includes all common abbreviations. Ambiguous abbreviations are solved based on the linguistic context: the abbreviation г. is pronounced город when followed by alphabetical characters, года when preceded by a date and грамм(-а,-ов) when preceded by a digit string.
B - 36
C-1 USER'S GUIDE Appendix C BAR CODE SYMBOLOGIES This appendix discusses the “symbologies” or bar code standards supported by the IRISPen Executive software and contains some samples of bar codes the IRISPen can read with great ease. The bar height, the width of the narrow bar, the narrow to wide ratio and the character string the bar code contains are indicated each time. (The narrow to wide ratio does not apply to all types of bar codes.
C-2 its, but also the uppercase letters and seven special characters (- . $ / + % and a space). An extended version of Code 39 allows to encode the full 128 ASCII character set. The “full” ASCII set refers to all characters up to character 128 in the ASCII table set, the “special” and accentuated symbols from 128 onwards such as ç and ó are not included. The option "Full ASCII Set" must be enabled with the "Bar Code" button on the toolbar to support this symbology. TEST1A Bar height: 0.
C-3 USER'S GUIDE Wh # Full ASCII, bar height: 0.5", narrow bar width: 24 mils, narrow to wide ratio: 2.5 CODE 93 Code 93 is a alphanumeric, self-checking, variable-length bar code. Every character is composed of nine elements arranged in three bars with adjacent spaces. A character is defined by five black bars and four spaces; three elements are wide, six are narrow. There is a leading and trailing quiet zone, a start and stop character, a termination bar and two check characters.
C-4 TS0.5/4b Bar height: 0.5", narrow bar width: 24 mils INTERLEAVED 2 OF 5 Interleaved 2 of 5 is a numeric, self-checking, variable-length and highly compact bar code. A character is defined by five black bars and five spaces; two black and two white bars are wide, all others bars are white. There is a leading and trailing quiet zone, a start and stop character and an optional check character.
C-5 USER'S GUIDE CODABAR Codabar is a primarily numeric, self-checking and variable-length bar code for up to 16 data characters. There is a leading and trailing quiet zone and a start and stop character (A B C D). This standard is used primarily for numeric applications; you can encode the digits and six special characters (- . $ / + :). The digits and the $ and - symbol are printed with one wide bar and one space.
C-6 The check digit is verified but filtered from the reading result when the option "Verify and Erase Check Digit" is enabled, otherwise, it is read and included in the output. Disable this option to support the variation of UPC which does not contain a check digit. Apart from the check digit, there is a left, center and right guard pattern. The first half of the bar codes uses odd parity digits, the second half uses even parity digits.
C-7 USER'S GUIDE The check digit is verified but filtered from the reading result when the option "Verify and Erase Check Digit" is enabled, otherwise, it is read and included in the output. Apart from the check digit, there is a left, center and right guard pattern and there are odd and even parity digits. EAN-8 - EAN stands for “European Article Number” - is used for products where the origin country must be encoded. It is actually a European version of UPC-A.
C-8 Apart from the check digit, there is a left, center and right guard pattern and there are odd and even parity digits. EAN-13 - EAN stands for “European Article Number” - is the standard of the publishing industry for the ISBN numbers on books and publications. EAN-13 is actually a European version of UPC-A. See above. 123456789110 Bar height: 0.3", narrow bar width: 12 mils 987654321014 Bar height: 0.4", narrow bar width: 18 mils 95103578920 Bar height: 0.
C-9 USER'S GUIDE CODE 128 Support of Code 128, a specialized bar code symbology for the banking world, is not included in the IRISPen Executive software. Contact I.R.I.S. to learn how to obtain this software option.
C - 10
D-1 USER'S GUIDE Appendix D HANDWRITING AND FORM DESIGN RULES Where less than optimal reading results are obtained with the handprinting recognition of the IRISPen Executive, it may be useful to adapt your writing style and optimize your forms to maximize your productivity. A few simple rules can teach you why substitutions occur and how to avoid them. THE WRITING IS IN THE PEN The first and most important rule is that you should use a sufficiently thick ballpoint.
D-2 DROP OUT MEANS BACKGROUND Red and yellow are the IRISPen’s invisible or “drop out” colors. This implies that all data in those colors cannot be recognized. On the other hand, these colors can be used efficiently as background color in the blank forms to indicate the various zones to be filled out etc.
D-3 USER'S GUIDE The drop out colors can also be used to ensure spaced printing by having the individual numbers placed in predefined blocks. DON'T STYLIZE TOO MUCH Don’t add too many loops where none are necessary. Excessively stylized forms may be more difficult to recognize. The number 2 provides a good example: we evolve from a situation where the form is hardly recognizable to a form where loops are added and make the symbol extremely stylized.
D-4 LOOPS OPENED AND CLOSED As extreme stylization can reduce the recognition rate, a simple writing rule could be this: don’t open loops which should be closed, don't close loops which should be open! The samples above show how characters can get confused because loops which should remain open were closed. Taking the examples below, are we dealing with a 4 or a 9, a 4 or a 6 and a 3 or a 5? HOW TO WRITE ONES The number 1 can be written in the “American” and “European” style.
D-5 USER'S GUIDE There is no risk of mistaking one for a seven. AVOID BROKEN CHARACTERS Ensure that the symbols 1 and 4 symbol aren’t broken when contiguous spacing is selected. For the symbol 1, there is a real risk of recognizing two symbols 1, for 4, you might recognize 61. This phenomenon only occurs when contiguous spacing is selected, not with spaced segmentation. For the symbol 5 on the other hand, it doesn’t matter whether the horizontal bar is separated from the rest of the font form.
D-6 AVOID RETRACING Avoid retracing as this reduces the image quality and clarity of the handprinted symbols. Symbols which are entirely stricken out are rejected. In our example, the recognition system makes some lucky guesses about characters which were retraced to correct them, and can only assume that the thin stricken out characters are ones. The ink spot on the extreme right is simply rejected.
